


Grade School Fight

by triste



Category: Hikaru no Go
Genre: F/F, Genderswap, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-21
Updated: 2012-11-21
Packaged: 2017-11-19 05:02:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/569404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/triste/pseuds/triste
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Hand-me-downs from *you*? I'd rather raid my grandma's closet."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grade School Fight

Title: Grade School Fight  
Author: Triste  
Fandom: Hikaru no Go  
Pairing: Akira/Hikaru  
Rating: PG  
Status: Complete  
Disclaimer: Not mine

~~

Touya finds herself annoyed by Shindou on a regular basis, but her personality isn't what's grating right now. The only things that should go clack on a go board are the stones placed upon it, but Shindou always has to be different. On her right wrist hang a row of bangles that clink and clang every time she moves. The noise they make is irksome enough, but the bangles themselves are even more so. They're cheap and cheerful, not to mention tacky. They don't even count as real jewellery, but Shindou seems to like them anyway. Touya finds them almost as offensive and distracting as Shindou's painted nails, but then Shindou's painted nails are nearly as notorious as her go playing abilities.

Today those nails are painted in alternate colours, which again is typically Shindou, but Touya does not appreciate the combination of yellow and orange. Still, it could be worse. At least they aren't sparkling or glowing in the dark.

Touya never wears nail varnish. It's damaging and frivolous and she disapproves of it. Touya prefers sensible things, like the pleated skirt she's wearing now which happens to be just the right length. The skirts Shindou occasionally wears are scandalously short and look more like handkerchiefs wrapped around her hips than anything resembling an item of clothing, but the fact that Shindou wears skirts at all these days is nothing short of a miracle.

Shindou has always been a tomboy. She still is, to a certain extent. She talks like a guy, acts like a guy, but there are subtle differences when Touya compares her to the person she was when they first met. The physical ones are the most obvious. Shindou isn't short and scrawny anymore. She's tall enough to look Touya in the eye now, and there's a melancholy elegance about her that definitely hadn’t been there the first time they'd crossed paths.

Touya still remembers a twelve-year-old Shindou frequently being mistaken for a member of the opposite sex because of her bad mouth and her surfboard chest. She remembers the tee shirts with the number 5 printed on them, the baggy shorts and the baseball caps, but Shindou is no longer the skinny little girl more likely to be seen with bruises and band-aids on her face than make-up. She's still slender, but now she's grown up and filled out, her bony angles melting into softer curves.

Everything about Shindou is gentler now, her face, her hands, and even her voice. Whatever made her abandon go two summers previously transformed her personality as much as her appearance, but Shindou never talks about that. The silence and the secrets are as frustrating now as they have ever been, but Touya is patient. She'll wait however long it takes for their promised someday to come. After all, they're rivals. They push and pull each other along their chosen path the way they've always done, and that will never change no matter what Shindou reveals.

Even so, future answers aren't the only things Shindou needs to worry about giving Touya, as she leans over the board to place her stone, unwittingly giving Touya a fantastic view down her top as the ever-irritating accessories on her wrist jingle like sleigh bells at the movement. She's wearing an electric blue bra underneath it, one with a front fastening clasp, and Touya tactfully averts her gaze. Shindou, as ever, remains oblivious.

Eyefuls aside, Touya's concentration is not what it ought to be, but she still has the advantage. Her responding move makes Shindou pause and nibble at her gloss-coated lower lip. It's a habit she always gets whenever she's contemplating, and it's also a sign for Touya to be cautious of whatever is about to come next. She hasn't picked up her fan though, so she isn't getting serious just yet. Touya knows Shindou better than anyone so she's well aware that the lip biting usually precedes something subtle and completely unexpected, and she relishes the twists and turns of Shindou's play.

Life with Shindou is exciting and unpredictable, both on the go board and off it, but it can also be frustrating and exasperating. They rarely seem to agree on anything, even the game they love so much. Go is where most of their arguments usually stem from, when Touya is too busy yelling over Shindou's foolish recklessness to remember that she's been brought up to be reserved and refined. Raising her voice in public is a necessity where Shindou is concerned, if only to hammer home whatever point Touya is trying to make into her head, but Shindou never takes criticism well, at least not when Touya is the one who's giving it.

Nine times out of ten she'll scream right back and call Touya fifteen different kinds of stupid, and when she isn't doing that she'll make some snide response like how she's sure Touya has a calcium deficiency and should drink more milk to improve her poor temperament, not that these comebacks ever hold much truth. Touya is in perfect health, more so than Shindou 'I eat three bowls of ramen a day' Hikaru anyway, which makes it slightly hypocritical for a person who doesn't even get the recommended intake of fresh fruit and vegetables to lecture on the importance of good nutrition.

Shindou doesn't always show it but she's happy when she's with Touya. The bickering and the imaginative insults tend not to matter so much to Touya when Shindou smiles. Touya can remember a time when Shindou wasn't smiling, when happiness didn't seem to exist for her anymore, and that's why Touya treasures the time they spend together. Even when they're arguing, even when Shindou is being deliberately obnoxious and Touya is being catty and really should know better, it's still enjoyable.

"You're spacing out," notes Shindou, nudging Touya's ankle under the table with her toes. "That's not like you."

"I was thinking," Touya says honestly, "about how utterly alien you seem sometimes."

"Well you're the Queen of PMS, but do *I* ever say that to your face when I should be concentrating on the game?" huffs Shindou. "You're lucky this isn't an official match, otherwise I'd have flattened you."

"Have you *ever* won an official match against me?" asks Touya, making Shindou scowl indignantly.

"Just you wait," she warns, pointing a finger and clacking her bangles. "I'll beat you soon. Yongha too. Did I tell you Suyon's been teaching me Korean? I know the words for 'eyelashes', 'bitch' and 'die'."

"Always useful for starting up a conversation in a foreign country," Touya says dryly, and Shindou mumbles out "Shuusaku", "revenge" and something about perverted females from Korea and their inability to keep their hands to themselves.

Touya makes a mental note to have a stern word with Yongha next time they meet, and also to remind Shindou to wear pants in Yongha's presence instead of those silly short skirts. It's like Shindou is just asking to be groped, not that Touya would ever follow Yongha's lead by acting on her hormones instead of repressing them, and Touya wonders if she ought to start lending Shindou some of her clothing. Yongha has never found Touya's favourite knee-length tartan skirt more appealing than Shindou's micro minis, after all.

"Hand-me-downs from *you*?" says Shindou after Touya makes the suggestion, wrinkling her nose. "I'd rather raid my grandma's closet."

And that sparks up yet another argument, this time with Shindou snickering about how elderly people are more in touch with fashion than Touya, who proudly defends her preferred combination of lavender blouses and peach coloured sleeveless sweaters. The other customers in the salon turn a deaf ear and Ichikawa adjusts the volume of the television, none of them wanting to get involved with Touya and Shindou's grade school fight.

 

End.


End file.
